Kama, A. (2004). Supercrips versus the Pitiful Handicapped: Reception of
Disabling
Images
by
Disabled
Audience
Members.
Communications, 29(4), 447-466.
Quantitative and qualitative symbolic annihilation of disabled persons received but scant
attention by media scholars. Empirical interest in audience perceptions of these means of
exclusion is even scarcer. In the light of this lack of research and the contemporary trend to
conceptualize meaning as a product of ongoing dialogues between inert texts and active
consumers the following paper tries to record and analyze the ways disabled audience members
produce meanings out of stereotyping processes inherent in the media portrayals of disabled
characters. Disability in this paper will be narrowed to bodily impairments for the main reason
that other impairments are problematical—if not unfeasible—to portray in mediated images,
particularly in visual media that constitute the principal loci of popular attraction.
Disabling images
Since 'Western' societies tend to shun disabled people, bar their presence in public spaces,
and relegate them to their private realms, for many people the mediated arena is the only place
they can view them (Thomson, 2001). This exclusion is accomplished through various means:
On one hand, there is a tradition in modern societies to hide 'unæsthetic' people away from
public view (Wolfson & Norden, 2000). On the other hand, even if they do want to come out of
their hideouts, architectural inaccessibility prevents them from doing so. Furthermore, disabled
people constitute one of the most disenfranchised minorities. That means that their participation
in culture producing institutions is rare; therefore, their say in the construction of their images is
negligible at best (Mitchell & Snyder, 1997).
The lion's share of representations of disability stems from the medical model that views
disability as a calamity that requires treatment. This model focuses on efforts to return disabled
people to 'proper' functioning so that they can be embraced by 'normal1' society. Images derived
from the medical model portray disabled people from the perspective of nondisabled people.
1
Disabled people are but objects of gaze whose stories are often narratives of overcoming and
curing their 'defect'. Individual actions seem to provide the sole solution to the ontological
hardships for those who are seen as isolated agents who are supposed to single-handedly
overcome various obstacles. Yet, at the same time, they are never truly independent.
Impediments are always constructed as residing within the individual, and never as problems
created by society such as interpersonal alienation, inaccessibility, job and housing
discrimination, stigmatization, etc. (Couser, 2001; Karpf, 1997; Oliver, 1990). Indeed, most
cultural narratives accentuate personal isolation as an essentialized characteristic of all disabled
people. By characterizing disability as an individual problem, cultural story-tellers dissociate
disabled people's experiences from any social context.
One of the common patterns of representation is the personal tragedy (Cumberbatch &
Negrine, 1992). This narrative divorces disabled people from the cultural and social contexts
that are responsible for their predicament and problematic status and presents their complex
problems as if they were a personal tragedy. Alongside stories that glorify 'special
achievements', most of the stories about disabled people relate to medical treatments and cures.
By and large, these representations are stereotypical and place disabled people outside the
'regular' stream of existence in order to elicit feelings of pity, terror, and/or adoration. The
pitiable and pathetic person is a source of great fascination for various cultural producers
(Nelson, 1994; Pointon, 1999). Facile worlds are created where problems can be solved via two
kinds of intervention: medicine or miracles. Alternately, death is the instrument of 'salvation'. In
any case, society is absolved, hence not responsible for disabled persons' afflictions (Darke,
1997).
Not all images are grounded in the medical model. Clogston (1994) classified disabled
representations into two main categories: the traditional and the progressive. The former depicts
disabled people from a medical point of view; the latter perceives them as being disabled by
society. This approach is referred to as the social model of disability, according to which the
disabled person is constructed by repressive cultural and institutional mechanisms that police
the body and manufacture an inaccessible world (Kasnitz & Shuttleworth, 2001; Schriempf,
2
2001; Wendell, 2001). In the context of mass-mediated texts, we can distinguish between these
categories in terms of their framing: Whereas the traditional starting point frames disability as a
personal tragedy, generating pity and compassion; the progressive category of images frames
the narrative in terms of a political struggle for equality and inclusion. Studies demonstrate that
traditional treatments are still dominant in the media, particularly in journalistic practices
(Biklen, 1986).
An aura of exceptionality surrounds images of disability which trigger an ambivalent
reaction. Simultaneous curiosity and disgust can be signified as one semantic unit:
Attraction/Repulsion. Nondisabled people are both mesmerized by bodily disfigurement and
nauseated by it. The flawed body is thus a site of a primordial emotional mêlée. Moreover,
nondisabled people know that they are healthy and intact, and that the image they see does not
reflect them. On the contrary, they are well aware that their 'normalcy' is secure (Thomson,
2001).
Many texts employ impairment and disabled people as metaphors to induce such
sensations. Sontag (1978) demonstrates how illnesses become metaphors for, among others, the
ethical judgments of their carriers. Disabled people are shunned by 'healthy' society, which
remains 'clean', yet righteous. Disfigured bodies and wheelchairs are used as semiotic short-cuts
in order to shock and arouse audiences (Mitchell & Snyder, 1997). Historical reviews
demonstrate that the humanity of disabled characters has conventionally been sacrificed to make
them a unidimensional lesson. Disabled people have been encapsulated as a threat to 'proper'
society (Snyder & Mitchell, 2001). There is a direct correlation between these images and social
attitudes towards: they reproduce and reinforce each other, and thus prevent real social change.
To sum up, images are entrenched in the cultural practice of translating physical 'abnormality'
into social inferiority.
Textual analyses of popular media (the cinema and TV) and canonical arts (literature and
theater) yield the fundamental phenomenon of erasure (Barton, 2001; Mitchell & Snyder, 2000):
Disabled people are all but invisible in the symbolic reality. However, erasure is not complete,
and disabled images do occasionally flicker in the media. These are mainly caricatured
3
stereotypes (Bogdan et al., 1982; Longmore, 1987; Nelson, 1996; Oliver, 1990). One of the
durable and prevalent images is that of the supercrip who embodies the popular image of
disability as 'something' that one must successfully overcome, rather than learn to adjust to. It
does not challenge the cultural and environmental burdens, but demonstrates that they can—
with sufficient willpower—be overcome (Clogston, 1994; Harnett, 2000). Furthermore, the
supercrip model may be considered by popular imagination to be a positive image because of its
"super-human feats" (Nelson, 1994, p. 91); but in fact it does nothing to undermine the cultural
construction of disability, to say nothing of 'objective' obstacles (e.g., inaccessibility and
discrimination of various kinds).
I would like to offer a vital distinction: (1) The 'regular' supercrip is a disabled person
who can accomplish mundane, taken-for-granted tasks as if they were great accomplishments.
While these routine achievements attest to the disabled person's unusual gifts, the apotheosis of
such minor successes indicates that all disabled people are not actually expected to perform at
all. (2) The glorified supercrip who performs highly extraordinary deeds—climbing a mountain,
sailing the ocean, etc.—fascinates the media and triggers two insights: (a) Disability is not
socially constructed, but is equivalent to a physical impairment which can and must be
overcome by resolute dedication; (b) By default, all disabled people who cannot perform well in
their daily endeavors seem to be lacking in willpower and self-discipline. In other words,
supercrips eclipse their peers who are thus negatively judged.
In the context of news media, Haller (2000a, b) found that even when the media do cover
relevant issues, there is a tendency to treat disabled people as if they cannot express themselves.
Another general trend in news items and documentaries is to minimize human beings into their
impairments (Kriegel, 1982). The impairment becomes their raison d'etre. It is thus not
surprising that their lives are empty and devoid of 'normality': They are mostly desolate, lonely
and obsessively preoccupied with their disability. The overall picture is of human beings who
have nothing to contribute to themselves or to society (Zola, 1985). By and large, no 'regular'
people with disabilities are found on the mass mediated stage.
4
Perhaps not surprisingly, all studies concentrate on English-speaking cultural arenas. One
study, conducted in Israel (Gold & Auslander, 1999), content analyzed two hundred newspaper
articles. It was found that Israeli media still embrace the traditional medical model. The
individualized perspective is reinforced. Overall, the Israeli media are conservative and
accentuate disabled persons' inability to be integrated into the larger social fabric.
To sum up, the disabled person is forever a pariah, inherently different from the nondisabled. The different negative images attributed to disabled people substantiate, corroborate,
and reproduce their inferior and peripheral positioning outside 'normal' society. The supercrip
image albeit ostensibly affirmative does nothing to remedy this phenomenon. In this cycle of
cultural production, disabled people remain undesirable and sub-human (Barnes & Mercer,
2001).
What does this mean for disabled audience members?
An assortment of mechanisms for the symbolic production of disabled human beings has
been catalogued and characterized by the aforementioned researchers; however, a crucial
question arises: How do disabled audience members perceive these methods of (re)presentation?
Though quite a few studies have conducted textual analyses, these cannot answer the question.
There is today a burgeoning theoretical and methodological trend to conceptualize meaning only
in the context of the interaction between texts and readers, who are situated within sociohistorical milieus. Meaning therefore does not reside within an inert text; it is manufactured by
interpretive agents (Jensen, 1991). Contemporary thought advances the principle that meaning is
produced at the moment of reading within a social framework. Indeed, interpretative work is
carried out in relation to the social environment with which the reader conducts an on-going
dialogue (Renckstorf, 1996; Schoening & Anderson, 1995).
This leads us to question the relevance of these scholarly analyses to the lived
experiences of disabled people. Several researchers have already voiced a similar dissatisfaction
with the existing body of work, which ignores the reception of disabling images by those who
are most acutely affected by them (Barnes & Mercer, 2001; Braithwaite & Thompson, 2000;
5
Ross, 2001). In other words, disability studies scholars should start redressing disabled people's
social and cultural "voicelessness" (Mitchell & Snyder, 1997, p. 11).
To the best of my knowledge, so far merely three studies have been conducted to examine
media reception by disabled audiences. The British Broadcasting Standards Council (1997)
performed a small-scale project to look at audience reactions to the BBC drama Scallagrigg,
whose protagonist is a teenager with cerebral palsy. It was felt, inter alia, among the
interviewees that media portrayals reflected the 'real life' situation, i.e., that disability is difficult
to find or confined to 'specialist' (unpopular and inaccessible) slots. There was an absolute
requirement that disabled roles should be primarily positive; and, at the same time, the depiction
of heroic efforts to overcome disability was severely criticized. Ross (1997, 2001) conducted
two reception studies. In the first study she ran 33 focus groups; and further 184 disabled
individuals completed postal questionnaires. The most common complaint was against the
disregard to "real-life experiences of working through disability and leading ordinary lifestyles.
[…] There was also a widespread irritation and sadness that programmes most often took a
stereotypical line […] and did not show realist portrayals of disabled people running homes,
bringing up families, having loving relations—in short, being ordinary rather than 'disabled'" (p.
671). Ross's second research delved into similar issues among disabled radio listeners (N=469)
in the UK. Among their complaints was the way one person's battle to fight his/her impairment
becomes the benchmark for everyone else.
Spontaneous memories of mass mediated images
The ethnographic approach—on which the present research is grounded—examines the
subjective meanings ascribed to mediated texts as well as the socio-cultural contexts of media
consumption in order to uncover interactions between readers and texts (cf., Ang, 1996;
Gillespie, 1995). This research is based on interviews that began with one common question:
'What is your first or most remarkable memory of a disabled person in the media?' On the basis
of the responses, an unstructured conversation ensued. The interviewees were largely
responsible for the direction of the interview, determined by their spontaneous memories. My
6
objective was to reveal subjective interpretative patterns of mediated messages; therefore I was
careful not to lead them into pre-conceived configurations. This 'open' method facilitated
authentic recollections (unlike recognition of stimuli presented to interviewees as in 'traditional'
methods'.)
The interviews, which took place during the summer of 2002, lasted approximately 45
minutes each and were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Following the procedures of
grounded theory, the main ideas were 'distilled' via a thematization process and then grouped
into wider categories of meaning (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). This process was meant to reveal
and depict the ways the interviewees make sense of their life and identity and experiences with
the media from their vantage point (Rubin & Rubin, 1995).
Thirty Jewish-Israeli disabled people were interviewed: 18 women and 12 men; their
average age was 43 (the youngest was 23; the oldest, 62); two-thirds had some academic
education (most had a university degree). A dozen interviewees had polio; six, spinal muscular
atrophy; four, cerebral palsy. The other impairments were: deafness, arm amputation, and
quadriplegia. Most interviewees were born with or acquired their impairment at an early age;
five were injured later in life2. Interviewees were recruited through snow-balling: The first
group was contacted through formal organizations (e.g., sport centers, a political caucus, etc.),
the Internet, and academic institutions. These interviewees referred me to their friends,
colleagues, or spouses. Since this is a preliminary exploration, I have not made any attempt to
analyze links between socio-demographic variables and themes. The presentation of themes is
irrespective of the interviewee's gender, impairment, etc. The quotations below closely follow
the colloquial Hebrew the interviewees used. All names are fictitious.
Findings
A wealth of themes was extracted from the interviews. This paper will elaborate on those
that refer to questions of reception of the two prevalent stereotypes. The basic
conceptualizations emanate from the literature, but the present elaboration is derives from the
interviews analyses. To be sure, there were several other themes that due to the brevity of any
7
paper cannot be reported herein. The antagonistic supercrips and pitiful handicapped images
may assist in learning about the interviewees' self-perception as well as their interactions with
the cultural construction of disability in present-day Israeli society. This dichotomy was derived
from the interviews' analyses but is also prevalent by different concepts in the literature.
Supercrips
Many interviewees related to disabled people who have commendable achievements.
These references were by and large imbued with admiration for the people who could and did
triumph over various obstacles. In contrast to the overall critical tone found in the literature, the
majority of the present informants hailed this image. They consistently expressed a desire for
representations of disabled people who are 'bigger than life': People for whom these obstacles
are not impassable. Supercrips serve as role models and objects of emulation. They constitute
examples of disabled individuals who can overcome difficulties and become 'normal' human
beings.
Aliza is a 52 year-old secretary with muscular atrophy, and her words well reflect the
general mood. The person who 'fights the disability'—whether a 'real' person or a fictional
image—is placed on a pedestal because he enables her and others to free themselves of the
burden of feeling incompetent and futile. The supercrip affirms their belief that their
impairments are not necessarily a reason to withdraw from participation in the 'normal' stream
of existence.
I see a disabled person on the stage or I see him in the newspaper achieving some
accomplishment or I see him climbing on the bus… all sorts of things… I am
always excited. I say: 'Wow, that's great!' […] Because he doesn’t give up. He
fights. Because he exists. And this happens in the media, and in advertisements,
and has high status. I mean, I see this as an achievement that I respect. […] I really
love when a person is ambitious and fights the disability.
8
Two supercrip prototypes can be delineated: the 'regular' disabled who achieve mundane
accomplishments, which because of their impairment are considered exceptionally successful;
and people who achieve feats that even nondisabled persons rarely attempt.
The problematic situation of disabled persons—constant medical treatments, inferior
positionality, exclusion from public spaces and the public sphere, entrenched prejudices,
equating physical impairment with mental retardation, and the like—guides them to look for
models of overcoming physical, social, and cultural obstacles. Disabled media consumers seek
images that may corroborate their own hopes to overcome these difficulties. Mediated 'regular'
supercrips are perceived as especially vital for they publicly demonstrate the feasibility of
routine existence. Moreover, this type can attest to the most important conception: a disabled
person’s disability lies not within the body but is the direct result of social limitations.
A common metaphor is that of the fighter: someone who has mobilized inner resources in
order to fight the impairment and the environment. Against all odds, the fighter survives in a
hostile world, and thus becomes a venerated symbol of the longing to be a 'whole', complete
human being. The fighter does not surrender to pain or to feelings of self-pity. Orit is a 28 yearold student who uses a wheel chair for mobility. One of the texts she recalled was a children's
book whose protagonist was a fighter, not because of extraordinary achievements, but because
she never surrendered to the burdens of her impairment and never broke down. Her very
survival made her a supercrip.
I loved this book. […] It is written in such a way… the frustrations and the… it
was written very candidly… like a story of a fighter, and not the story of someone
who cries and whimpers… It was not written as a sad life story. […] A disabled
person should be a fighter, because that is how he is seen.
Rami is a 33 year-old social worker. He is a quadriplegic as a result of an accident when
he was 18. He claims that actor Christopher Reeve—whose situation resembles that of
Rami's—has 'healthy powers'. I asked Rami to explain this expression, and he replied:
9
One should not show the pitiful side of the disabled [sic.3]… He plays in a movie
[Rear Window; Britain, 1998] like a fighter. He is in a worse state than me and
plays a fighter. A person who takes care of everything, And he lives although all he
has is a joystick in his mouth. This is great.
One of the most significant parameters of success is a professional career. Yossi is a 50
year old engineer who uses a wheel-chair because of polio. He is adamant in his view that the
best images of disabled people are those who are employed and climb the ladder of a
professional career. Yossi constructs such people as a kind of supercrip:
I definitely think that the media should show more cases of disabled who are what I
call 'successful'. Never mind if they succeed in business or the work place or family
life. […] No one, I assume, knows that until ten years ago the registrar of
companies was in a wheel chair […] Tel Aviv’s district attorney was disabled. […]
I absolutely expect the media to show these things. The good things, and not only
the disabled who demonstrate in the streets or those whose economic situation is
bad… and who encounter hardships…
Disabled media professionals are relevant in this context. They can also be considered
supercrips because they break through the inherent structural barriers and are, by definition,
visible. They constitute a paradigmatic example of the universal desire to put an end to
mechanisms of exclusion and symbolic annihilation. Disabled media professionals whose
impairment plays no role in their career—who can, for instance, anchor programs that have
nothing to do with disability—demonstrate that normalcy is possible. That integration into
social systems is feasible. The implicit message is of practical and political advantage: Other
disabled people can learn that they can achieve professional and other kinds of success, while
10
nondisabled persons can learn that discrimination should end. These supercrips are hence agents
of social change.
Nira—a 52 year old unemployed paraplegic—admires a couple of radio anchors and
other professionals, because they serve as role models and have become public actors who
undermine stereotypes. Nira perceives them as incentives for other disabled people:
He [a famous radio anchor] is successful and works in the media. […] For me it
was an example, a message: 'Look how wonderful!' He is in a wheel chair and he
works in the radio. […] I didn't really think that disabled people would have key
positions in work, on the radio, such places. [… Another radio anchor] gave me the
opportunity to see one of us… on top. It is very important for me that 'our' disabled
advance. [...] Being a doctor, a lawyer, proves something to people who think we
are retarded.
Another dimension of the 'regular' supercrip is marriage. It seems that marriage
(particularly to a nondisabled partner) is perceived as a remarkable achievement perhaps
because of the cultural construction of disabled people as asexual and lacking in sexual
potential since their bodies are not æsthetic (Mairs, 1996). Married disabled people are
therefore supercrips of sorts. Lilach—a 23 year old single student with cerebral palsy—views
marriage to a nondisabled person as an achievement worthy of media attention:
If I read in the papers or see a program where a couple - a disabled man and a
regular woman - get married and settle down… It does not astonish me, but it
excites me… something special. I mean, it is a sort of a sweet illusion that it may
happen to me as well.
Unlike the 'regular' supercrips who perform like nondisabled people, the glorified
supercrips are unique. They become cultural idols. Nehama—a 50 year old secretary with
11
muscular atrophy—accentuates the fact that disabled people always start off from a lesser
position than their non-disabled peers. In order to excel, they need to surmount the obstacles
which all disabled persons face. Their ascent to the center of public attention is thus a source of
great satisfaction for other disabled people. Nehama describes the famous paralyzed violinist:
I will not say that I salute, but I certainly am happy for people who have great
careers. To mention one - then Itzhak Perlman, who won success, and is still
successful world-wide. […] From where he began, from this disability, from the
hardships […] I definitely appreciate him.
Mali is a 48 year old book-keeper with polio, and from her words we can learn about the
vast psychological and social importance of glorified supercrips. They are living proof that only
society is responsible for their abject situation. Mali, like many other interviewees, stresses that
disabled people are 'just like everyone else', and hence do not warrant special treatment by the
media. Current media coverage can be ridded of structural discrimination by using examples of
supercrips. Only then will disabled persons be integrated into mainstream society as equals,
regardless of their health or physical features.
I say that the media have nothing to say about the disabled. They talk about them
only when there is a demonstration or when one receives the Israel Prize [a
prestigious annual prize]. […] There is no reason to talk about them, because they
are regular people. Why should they talk about you?4 […] There should not be
media coverage of the disabled, that is, except for achievements and
demonstrations. They talk about the achievements and it's good that they want to
show that the disabled, in spite of their limitations, have great achievements in
sports. […] In our club we say: 'You know, we've seen this guy on TV'. It gives us
a good feeling to know them, and we know they are lawyers and such… First of
12
all, the disabled are not a burden on society. […] I think that every disabled wants
to achieve this, to feel that he is equal, he is worthy.
While most interviewees found the supercrip a positive representation, a few criticized it.
Orit unfolds her own experience of being represented as a supercrip:
[When I was] 16 someone came over and wrote a short item on me for a newspaper
that I didn't like. […] He wanted to write about the achievements of someone with
a serious disease. […] I went to a regular school, and this probably was symbolic
for him. […] For me it was clear that I'd go to regular school, because that's what I
wanted. It was not my achievement. […] And it annoyed me that it was seen as a
success.
Eytan—a 26 year old political activist with cerebral palsy—objects to this image, which
is problematic and infuriates him:
[…] The hero, the successful, the stronger than Superman […] reinforces stigmas.
Because when a talk show host refers to me as 'my hero', because of the fact that I
graduated from high school and went abroad with friends, things that you did too,
he actually said: 'I didn't expect you to do this, and yet you did'. And the message is
'you are a hero'. […] But you can continue to think of the others the way you did
before, because it's impossible to relate to 300,000 disabled people in Israel as
heroes.
The image of a successful disabled person may contribute to the erroneous impression
that a new era has dawned. Furthermore, the supercrip image may constitute a standard against
which other disabled will be judged. This could reinforce the false—yet widely accepted—
blaming of the individual. These positive supercrips can help absolve society of its sins, and
13
promote the illusion that the social reality is no longer a problem for those with physical
impairments. The criticism voiced by several informants is threefold:
1. Focus on success. The apotheosis of a very small minority of disabled people may be
construed as indirect disparagement of all the others, who may be perceived by
themselves and their surroundings as failures.
2. Banal achievements. The media praise achievements that are straightforward for
nondisabled persons and strengthen the popular view that a disabled person is a lesser
human being. Society's expectations are so low that banal actions achieve heroic
proportions.
3. Focus on individuals. This treatment ignores the social mechanisms that operate
against disabled people as a whole.
The pitiful handicapped
The complementary image of the pitiful disabled is grounded in a process of
objectification, whereby disabled people become the personification of their impairments. Since
they are imperfect, flawed beings who cannot survive independent of another person, they lose
their agency and become helpless objects. Their existence is dependent on the feelings of pity
they arouse. All the interviewees abhor this image. They all expressed views that alternate
between frustration and fury. This cultural construction of their identities is perceived to be the
epitome of their negation.
Being pitiful is meant to trigger sympathy. However, the objects of this sentiment share a
profound antagonism to any such attempt. Stimulating pity is perceived as another means to
exile disabled people out of the 'normal' social fabric. Objects of pity are not normal human
beings, but doomed creatures who, without pity, cannot survive. Their humanity is thus severely
damaged. Moreover, commiseration permits nondisabled people to momentarily absolve
themselves, instead of taking steps toward sincere social change that will allow integration.
Feeling hence becomes a substitute for action. Pity also positions disabled people as worthless;
14
people with whom no ordinary relationship is possible. They become mere objects; the process
of exclusion is now final and irreversible.
Suzy—a 55 year old teacher whose legs are paralyzed—explains why the pitiful image is
so problematic:
It destroys self-respect. My self-respect. Because I can look, because I can work…
I mean, I am part of society. If I'm pitiful, I… it excludes me from the rest.
Johnny—a 37 year old retired quadriplegic merchant—grounds the problem of this
image in its power of exclusion. Like the rest of the informants, he wishes to be a part of society
and to minimize the impact of his impairment:
I don't believe that any disabled person wants to present himself as pitiful or
wretched. Simply, the disabled want to be accepted by society. Undeniably.
Avraham—a 55 year old menial worker injured in an accident—blames the media and
the entire Israeli society that prefer to conceptualize disabled people as pitiful than do anything
to help them. His grievance—shared by everybody else—focuses on the common tendency to
help individuals instead of attempting to alleviate the difficulties which they face.
Disabled people are presented today in a way… I think that all disabled are
presented as pitiful. Because how can you arouse sympathy if you are not pitiful?...
The fact that you sit in a wheel chair does not make you pitiful. But the public likes
very much to dramatize things, and if they see a disabled man and he says that it is
hard for him, and the authorities also make it difficult, and he doesn't have enough
food, immediately the entire country is mobilized…
15
Ya'akov—a retired 56 year old banker with polio—indicates the schism between his own
self perception as able and the mediated image of the weak disabled. As is evident in all
interviews, the informants tend to move from singular to plural pronouns. Indeed, the mass
disseminated image is perceived to be a token or an ambassador of sorts for all disabled people.
Therefore, the mode of representation seems to be necessarily projected unto all disabled and
the ways they present themselves. To a large degree, the media usage of a particular image is
also perceived to be the sole mode of identity formation in the social reality. The symbolic and
social realities are enmeshed within each other until mediated images and 'real' identities are
entangled and cannot be extricated from one another. Ya'akov reminisces:
I remember in my childhood […] I read about all kinds of people with disabilities.
Mostly, poor ones. Pitiful people of one sort or another… with pictures of beggars.
[…] First of all, I didn't feel myself to be pitiful, so it annoyed me a lot. I never
understood why the media treat me as pitiful. Me! […] I have lived with this
[polio] all my life and I knew that I was physically limited. […] I tried to do more
than others to prove, because it was like this from the media’s point of view and
also the surroundings. […] We were mentioned only in a certain connotation, just
within the framework of wretchedness: 'This poor cripple did this and that.' And
then I always said: 'My God! Why do they always show cripples who are poor and
dirty and disheveled and beggars… but never in a positive way?'
Anat—a 40 year old unemployed social worker with muscular atrophy—began unfolding
her memories by mentioning television talk shows. In recent years many talk show hosts have
cultivated a trend of helping 'poor' people and families. The latter are by definition miserable
creatures who must rely on the kindness and compassion of strangers. This new format assigns
social prestige to all involved: The hosts position themselves as humane, altruistic guardian
angels; commercial firms that donate money and/or services benefit from publicity while
making only a minimal investment; audience members sometimes donate money or simply
16
enjoy playing a virtual part in this real life drama; and, finally, the 'poor' person receives
material goods and fleeting celebrity status. Anat expressed deep resentment against this
phenomenon: National authorities evade their responsibilities towards disabled people, who
need to invest a lot of money to purchase accessories meant to enhance their limited
circumstances. Talk shows then become the only opportunity for many to be helped.
My memories are of the talk show that has a hooker and the 'token disabled'. It's
always… and I've never wanted to be there. […] The disabled who needs money
for a wheel chair, for a van, and other things that the State doesn't want to give
him. […] The 'token disabled' needs money, and the State humiliates him. […] I
could have, for example, gone to this host, because it [an electric wheel-chair] cost
me 34 grand. I somehow succeeded in getting donations, and didn't go to the show
because I was ashamed. I was not willing to be presented this way in the media.
Eytan, too, criticized the media for commercially exploiting disabled people as a pitiful
creature. The emotional stimulation that the media provides means higher ratings for the
program. The poor person is used as an instrument to maximize the audience share. Eytan also
focused on the individualistic treatment by the media which ignores the disabling social
systems. The media avert public attention from the general problem to a single case which is
more easily dealt with.
I must say rather sadly that the Israeli media […] actually strengthen the stigmas
and do not use their power. […] When he [disabled person] comes to a talk show
he is usually presented as poor. Disabled equals poor who needs help: 'Let's
mobilize, the State of Israel, to help this poor disabled person'. With the knowledge
that there are hundreds like him, that this is nothing, but we stimulated the
emotional gland which controls the media today, and we have won the ratings.
17
Nehama's observation sums up the various criticisms of the pitiful image, which
reproduces, reinforces, and maintains the stereotype of the disabled person as an unwanted and
parasitical hump on the back of 'healthy' society. Nehama opposes pitiful against successful
images, and clearly supports the latter as the proper and accurate approach.
The media shows the disabled, it still puts them, it still locates them not within
society itself, but outside of it. As a group of people that are different than society.
They are not yet society proper. Still different. And maybe the problem is that
sometimes the media, when it covers the disabled, maybe it covers them from a
position of pity. […] When we are defined, for example, as a group of weak
people, I say, it is not that we are weak. We are weakened. Society at large
weakens us. [Question: What is the right way, do you think?] Not to bring pictures
of poor people, but to bring the people… who have families, who work, who make
a living, who achieved something on their own. Actually, this is one of the things
that disabled people have difficulty with, that they are always shown as very poor.
And this is actually not true.
Existence on both poles of the human axis
Zola (1991) maintains that society delivers an ambivalent message to people with
disabilities via the media. On one hand, success stories exemplify their capacity to fully enjoy
life. On the other hand, this message creates expectations that not all disabled people can fulfill.
If they fail, too bad for them! Yet, the lion's share of the interviewees in this study were
empathetic towards this model, which they thought was truly commendable. They emphasized
that this was the appropriate mode of representation because it constitutes a beacon of hope, a
model for admiration and emulation. Being awkwardly situated on the invisible and
disenfranchised outskirts of Israeli society makes disabled citizens seek images of success.
Images of people who are not only well-integrated in spite of their impairment, but for whom
the impairment plays no crucial role in the fulfillment of their wishes and ambitions. The
18
supercrips who participate in the public sphere thanks to some achievement—be it marriage to a
nondisabled spouse, a professional career, or public recognition—are perceived as role models,
a source of consolation, as well as respected emissaries to the rest of society. In spite of these
prevalent sentiments, the supercrips' (re)presentation and symbolic positioning clearly focus on
their impairment. Like all other disabled persons, they hardly ever take part in the public sphere
in contexts that are irrelevant to disability. In other words, only the impairment per se 'permits'
one to be part of the public discourse and merits media presence: Their actual as well as
(re)presented lives centers on their disability (Zola, 1985).
The contrast between supercrip and pitiful images surfaced throughout the interviews. I
would like to propose an axis of humanity where disabled persons are located on both poles, but
never at its 'normal' center. They are either 'more than human' or 'less than human', but seldom,
if at all, do they enter the public sphere as 'regular' people performing 'regular' tasks. To the
interviewees' chagrin, the media still focus on the crippling stereotypes that situate all disabled
people as helpless, wretched creatures who are doomed to eternal misery. This pitiful image is
still prevalent—and, to be sure, is overwhelmingly more common than the supercrip one—and
is pivotal in the phenomenon that Murphy (1990) called 'diminution of self'. If society treats a
group of people with scorn, mockery, aversion, etc., this inevitably harms their ego; their selfrespect and humanity are in serious doubt. Psychological impairment thus exacerbates the
corporal handicap. These individuals cannot develop a full human self, for both symbolic and
social realities teach them that disabled people are not entitled to be anything but 'quasi-human'
(op. cit.). An existential rift separates disabled people from the bedrock of 'normalcy'. This
conclusion echoes the BSC informants' "requirement that broadcast images show disabled
people as normal people who happened to be 'disabled'. That is, that television show such
characters as normal" (1997, p. 199).
It is not surprising, therefore, that the informants detest the pitiful image and are
unwilling to play the seemingly natural role that our culture allocates to them. Nondisabled
people seem to believe that the 'natural' response to physical impairment and its repercussions—
fatigue, pain, speech and/or mobility limitations, and the like—is despair, self-pity and
19
wretchedness (Mairs, 1996), as if wretchedness were the inherent outcome of being
handicapped. The prevalent media representation reproduces this quasi-human state to a great
extent. The reaction of the interviewees in this study to this approach was acutely negative. For
instance, some of the interviewees noted that they refused to watch talk shows because this
genre cold-heartedly exploited disabled characters, turning them into post-modern beggars who
practice their 'vocation' in television studios instead of on street corners.
Disabled people aspire to be included in the public discourse irrespective of their
disability. Disability should neither be a factor in nor a pretext for such participation, should not
affect the form of the representation, and should not be the sole focus of public attention.
Notwithstanding the positive perception of the supercrip stereotype, most interviewees prefer
not to relate to their impairments and display the disabled person as an integral, and wholly
human, member of society. They want to be situated in the center of the human axis and to
eradicate the tendency to shove them toward the periphery. Indeed, their wish is to be included
in the public sphere as 'regular' or 'normal' actors, whose corporality is negligible and
insignificant. Bodily impairments are essential components of the self, but the human totality
should neither be minimized nor objectified. To be like everyone else is the prime objective:
neither excelling nor suffering. As Ross's participants resentfully claimed: "disabled characters
were compelled to wear their disability on their sleeves, proclaiming their impairment as the
dominant identifier as if all aspects of their personalities and lives were entirely determined and
circumscribed by this one 'tragic' component" (1997, p. 672). The radio listeners voiced a
parallel expectation that disabled characters should not "wear the badge of disability" (2001, p.
431). In my research these demands are valid for fictional and non-fictional texts. Such a model
of representation can advance profound social change. In other words, the aim is to promote
inclusionary practices that will actualize the promise inherent in modern, democratic
multiculturalism. The media can take part in this affirmative action if they depict disabled
figures who are located in the epicenter of normalcy.
To sum up, this paper endeavored to show how mass mediated images interact with
psychological and sociological processes and help construct audience members' modes of self
20
perception. Indeed, questions of personal identity and the resultant socio-cultural positionality
are an integral part of media reception. The ways in which individuals construct their identities
within the social matrix are relevant to their patterns of sense-making of symbolic reality.
Disabled people's challenging situation—manifested in social inferiority, exclusion from the
'normal' stream of life, and stereotypical representations—prompts them to pursue models of
triumph over physical, societal, and cultural barriers. As media consumers, they seek examples
that corroborate their belief that these obstacles can be overcome. Highly regarded supercrips
embody but one instance; 'regular' (i.e., 'someone like me') people are especially coveted. Wellknown, successful disabled people are placed on a pedestal for their demonstrated ability to
triumph. This sort of triumph is used to validate the disabled individual ('I can do it') and to alter
societal perceptions ('the disabled can be like everyone else'). Consequently, the wish to see
disabled people who 'have done it' is particularly intense; while the pitiful disabled trigger
antipathy because they reproduce and reinforce the cultural status quo.
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Endnotes
1
"Normal" is a veritable political and theoretical mine-field; yet, it seems that both scholars and
interviewees perceive society to be grounded in a sort of a consensual contract that consigns
this term on those who adhere to physical flawlessness (see Goffman [1963] for a discussion
of the social construction of normalcy based on body attributes). For instance, Oliver (1990)
maintains that there are inevitable "social roles that are considered to be normal" (p. 4).
2
Except for one interviewee whose impairment is easily manipulated in her presentation of self
(i.e., deafness), all other respondents have to deal with their stigma on a routine basis. This
choice of sample was grounded in the underlying assumption that 'observable' impairments
are the mainstay of disabling media images. Moreover, this is based on the journalistic
practice of visualization, that is, making impairments visible at all costs (Haller, 1999).
3
In colloquial Hebrew "the disabled" is both an adjective and a noun. No other linguistic option
exists to denote disability or disabled people.
4
The author is nondisabled.
25